I don’t think that’s the thesis of the article. Rather, I think the article is saying that nice things alone don’t compensate for the opportunity costs and negative second-order effects you incur when obtaining _some_ nice things.
To use the article’s example of living in a city versus a suburb: If you can get a house in a suburb and can commute 15 minutes or so and are within walking distance of the stuff you care about (including your friends/family) and don’t value any of the perks of living in a city environment (or heavily dislike the downsides), then go for it. But a big house in the suburbs _alone_ isn’t automatically going to make your life better, yet in my experience that’s a very dominant mode of thinking.
To use the article’s example of living in a city versus a suburb: If you can get a house in a suburb and can commute 15 minutes or so and are within walking distance of the stuff you care about (including your friends/family) and don’t value any of the perks of living in a city environment (or heavily dislike the downsides), then go for it. But a big house in the suburbs _alone_ isn’t automatically going to make your life better, yet in my experience that’s a very dominant mode of thinking.